Utopia refers to nowhere, or to the ideal fantasy place; it is a word used by many wise men and philosophers as a description of their perceptions of a world they dream of, or the world that they think should be, because, in their view, it is the ideal world that human society must continue, so thereby be full and proper, one to reach and be throughout history.
Many of these concepts emerged, most notably in the work “The Republic” by Plato”, in Aristotle’s “Politics”, then the book by Al-Farabi “The Views of the People of the Utopia”, the “Book of The City of God” by Saint Augustine; then John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, “The City of the Sun” by Tommaso Campanella, and “Utopia” by Thomas More.
The importance of these works is not only that they are literary works, as some might imagine, but because they are the complete philosophical, social, political, and economic visions of their authors, ones which revolve in the orbit of what an ideal society should be, as well as its systems, government, and a way of life in detail; they are the writer’s artistic, moral, political, social, and economic system, customs, traditions, and other activities in social life. Nonetheless, all of these ‘YouTubes’ have not been able to materialize, and, fundamentally in the meantime, it has not been possible to make them.
Today, in the digital world, we observe the emissions of some of those philosophical visions and utopian concepts of the Muse of philosophers, those that stand out on the surface in a conflict with the concepts and values of evil, and what is interesting is that all of this happens within a purely economic cover.
Perhaps more clarity is needed: the utopian features of the digital world are reflected in those practices, initiatives and activities in all areas, whose aim is to promote society, whether scientific, humanitarian, or ethical, through the dissemination of contributions that benefit and promote society.
As well as in the virtual honouring of influential and creative figures in society; as well as in attempts to spread tranquillity by promoting a culture of love, tolerance, and peace among people, and so on, and in what we see every day in this digital world, the tools, means and vessels through which these practices are carried out to promote societies, both scientifically and creatively, are commercial tools and means, which are exploited freely and are widely accepted in social circles, and have a public advantage to exercise in return their advertising-based economic investments for companies and institutions of all kinds, forms and sizes, and works to promote their products through these tools and digital means, so the popularity advocated by Utopia and its prosperity, becomes conditional on these economies, and the existence of these digital means.
The effectiveness of the digital world is only a reflection of reality and social, political, and economic life, in which the impure, the innocent and the criminal are mixed with the bad, the good with the malicious, the good with evil, and the more flexible individuals who can achieve in this event.
To the extent that the effectiveness of the digital world eliminates the hierarchy of society, the centralities and barriers that characterize real-life – social life; to the more that it affects a society free of class diseases that have prevailed so much in past times, this society is no different from the old perceptions of utopia, which have only been attained in meaning. And to talk the rest.
Author : Manahel Thabet
Published February 05, 2021
Al Bayan Newspaper
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